Thoughts on Leadership

            For the record, I do not consider myself to be a great leader, but I do hope to be one some day.  I am not an expert in leadership, I’ve never been to a leadership conference, but I do feel like God has been teaching me a lot about the subject.  The following are just some of my thoughts about leadership. 

 

-One of my professors this past semester said one of the most powerful things I have ever heard about leadership.  He said that we love to use the term “servant leadership” when we talk about Jesus, but the thing is Jesus never used the term leadership, He just said serve.  Sometimes it sounds like we promote service as a means to get people to follow us.  Jesus says in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  So what if leaders served not for the sake of getting people to follow them, but just for the sake of serving?

 

-I’m going to be honest, I don’t like to read a lot of books on the idea of leadership because a lot of the time I feel like I’m reading a book about how to sell a good product, like I’m signing up for Amway or something.  But I did read one this past semester that presented a really intriguing concept.  It’s called reverse learning.  It’s when a leader/mentor actually seeks to learn from who he/she is leading/mentoring.  I think this is a great idea.  Why do leaders always think that every moment or encounter you have with them is their opportunity to teach you something?  I find this frustrating, especially when I do it other people. 

 

I think this would do a lot to help produce more influential leaders.  It seems that if there is a common struggle for almost all leaders it is that they aren’t very teachable.  Who hasn’t said that before?  But, I have found it to be true, and the thing is that if as a leader you aren’t teachable than you are going to produce other leaders who aren’t teachable.  Perhaps the greatest thing a leader can do for someone under them is show them how to be teachable. 

 

I think the idea of reverse learning is a difficult concept for most people in leadership because they think they have a monopoly on wisdom.  Leaders seem to think that because they have more experience and the simple fact that they are older than they have more wisdom than those who are under them.  Let us not forget that wisdom comes from God.  Job 32: 8-9 says, “It is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding.  It is not only the old who are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right.”  It seems that we all have something to learn from each other regardless of age or experience.

 

-David offers us some really beautiful words about leadership, and I consider him to be a great leader so I will offer them to you.

“The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me:  ‘When one rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.’”  2 Samuel 23:3-4

 

 

 

The God Who is Here (Pt. 2)

I love my people.  I love my church.  It's so great to be a part of something I believe in.  You guys are great!  Thank you.  

If we do serve a God who is here, a God who is now, a God who wants to know me; then why can I count on one hand the number of times I have had a genuine intimate encounter with Him?  “Well, I know I encountered God on this mission trip, and I know I felt God during this time of worship, and that one time when I prayed that I would find my car keyes and I did.”  It seems like an intimate God who is as big as we say He is should be a bit more involved with our lives than the few camio appearance we can remember.  Oh, but He is.

Here’s where I think the problem lies.  We seem to think that the only way we can encounter God is through what I like to call, “extra-terrestrial life encounters.”  These are the moments in our lives that seem so far removed from the everyday; kind of like when God speaks to Moses out of a burning bush.  It’s like the only way we expect to experience God is through some type of event that is so far removed from the world we live in, something that has little to do with the life I live from a day-to-day basis because God can’t be that interested in my life anyway can He?  I think that He is.  In Deuteronomy it says that Lord is our life.

There’s this guy Elijah who has a really interesting encounter with God.  You can read about it in 1 Kings 19.  Elijah is on the run from king Ahab and his wife Jezebel because they had killed all of his friends.  The Lord sends His word to Elijah and tells him to go stand on the mountain and that He will meet with him there.  Elijah goes to the mountain and something really peculiar happens.  The Bible says that there was a great and powerful wind that tore the mountains apart, but…the Lord wasn’t in the wind.  Then there was an earthquake, but…the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake.  Finally there was a fire; certainly God was in the fire.  Nope.   The Lord wasn’t in the fire.  The Bible than says that after the fire came a gentle whisper.  When Elijah heard it he went out and met with God.

Sometimes, probably most of the time, God speaks to us in whispers.  This isn’t a voice that stops us in our tracks or a voice that we can’t help but hear; this is a voice that we have to listen for.  Maybe it is a voice that is speaking all the time.  Maybe encountering God isn’t about waiting for Him to show up in some “extra-terrestrial life encounter”, but instead about discovering how eternity is right under our noses all the time.

God isn’t far removed from our lives, in fact, He is our life.  I think we need to ask more “why questions.”  Things like, “Why do I long to love and to be loved?  Why do I hate when my favorite movie is over?  Why does it bother me so much that people suffer who didn’t do anything to deserve it?  Why does music move me the way it does?  Why do I get so upset at bad drivers?”  If we ask more of these, “why questions” I think we will discover that God has a lot to do with what it means to be a human being and that He is very involved in our lives.  God is here, God is now, and He is our life.    

The God Who is Here (Pt. 1)

I'm back.  Sorry for the absence.  I have some excuses, but none of them are good enough to mention.  Let's just say that I was giving those of you who complain about how long my posts are time to catch up.  Just joshin.  Any way, I'm back and here's what's been on my mind.  

I’ve been thinking lately about traffic lights.  Normally the only time I think about traffic lights is when I’m stuck at one because for some reason people like to wait until they are ready before they drive their automobile through a green light.  I’ve been thinking of them in terms of what they do in the middle of the night.  Their twilight operations; what they do when all of the traffic is parked; the time of night when some traffic lights have given up changing colors and have decided to just flash yellow or red.  This is the time of the night that makes you feel like you’re breaking the rules, like you’re some sort of rebel for being out this late.  Not all traffic lights have decided to give up their color changing ways; many of them are still there varying their colors, determining the flow of traffic.  As we sleep theses guardians of the intersection stand at their posts alternating their moods from green, to yellow, to red, reflecting on traffic that has already gone by. 

            There are a couple of chapters in the book of Job where God is revealing to Job how intimate and how involved He is with His creation.  He asks Job things like, “Do you know when the mountain goat gives birth?  Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?  Do you count the months till they bear?  Do you know the time they give birth?”  This is a picture of a God who is very much interested in what is going on in the world He created, this is a picture of a God who is very much here.  I’m sitting here right now and I’m overwhelmed by the fact that God knows what the temperature is in my room, how the carpet feels on my feet, and how my fingers feel as they fall asleep from the lack of blood flow as I type out these thoughts.  All the while He is aware of what is happening with you and everyone else at this very moment as well as holding the entire universe together. 

            My favorite part of Job though is a question God asks in verses 25-27 of chapter 38.  God asks, “Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?”  See, God is so “here” that He is even where we are not.  Not only is God where I am, but also He is also where I’m not.  In the places that I neglect, the places I don’t think about, the places I am unaware of; there God is.  The funny thing about all of this is that I’m not usually aware of the places that I am in.  I don’t pay much attention to where I am right now, I’m usually thinking about where I need to go or wondering about where I once was. 

            Here’s the thing.  If God is there, “in a desert where no man lives”, where I’m not, then something tells me that He is here with me…now.  It isn’t a matter of Him showing up, it’s a matter of me meeting Him here in this place, where He already is.  Paul says it best when he says, “He is not far from each of us.  For in Him we live and move and have our being.”  Jesus is called, “Emanuel”, which means “God with us.”  We serve a God who is here.  A God who is all around you.  A God who is incredibly intimate with His creation.  A God who wants you to know Him.